In which I attend a birthday party and a mob murder ensues.

If you haven't wandered my profile, you may not know that I have (or had, I suppose) a photo blog. Yesterday, a friend of mine was lamenting that she missed doing photography and wanted a way to get back into it. I told her about my Project 365 and how much I'd enjoyed it.

And then I began reading through it from the beginning. I do this periodically and it never fails to please me--not because the photography is so great and how awesome am I? and all of that, but rather because it takes me back to those moments in time and reminds me of experiences I may otherwise have forgotten.

Sometimes it amuses me.

So here's a link to an early entry with an article that I'm actually unreasonably proud of writing. Murder, mayhem, and the lizard mob. Please to enjoy! (More bloggy bits of my current life to come in the near future).

http://project365lummox.blogspot.com/2009/05/day-fourteen.html

In which I enter a contest

If you've known me for long and we've talked about books, you'll probably know that one of my long-time favorite authors is Robin McKinley.

I've loved her work for a long time, but with Sunshine, I became obsessed (in the healthiest way possible). Reading that book was one of those epiphanies in life. It's difficult to explain, but that was a moment where I realized that it was possible to write in a voice like mine (though much, MUCH better, obvs), and still craft something amazing. She, Neil Gaiman, and Charles De Lint are the authors that have given me that feeling of possibility.

Since then, I caught up on her books I hadn't read, reread old favorites, and bought every new work she wrote. I also started following her blog, commented on entries, had a few conversations with her, and even announced my first fiction sale on there and got her personal congratulations (still one of the highlights of my life).

If you're looking for something good to read, try Sunshine, Spindle's End, Dragonhaven, or Pegasus, (though that last I recommend wholeheartedly, devotedly, but with a warning that it ends with heartbreaking abruptness and the second half isn't due out until next year).

And this month, she has a new release. SHADOWS is coming on September 26th! There's a contest on in which readers can Tweet, Facebook, or blog about it to enter a drawing for a signed copy. That's what I'm doing here!

http://tinyurl.com/RMcKSHADOWS
#RMcKSHADOWS 
http://robinmckinleysblog.com/contest/

Use any of those above and you can repost the same to share with fellow book lovers--and I highly recommend you do!

"I swear this is not a writing blog!"

I SWEAR. But it sure does look like it right now, and this post isn't exactly going to help.

Last night, a beautiful thing happened: I received an award for my writing. "One of the most important nights of your life...and you weren't even there!" my friend Debbie says. It's true. I was about eight hours away from the ceremony. It's all right, though; said friend ably accepted the award on my behalf.

This is not exactly the first thing I've won. I mean, I have two Associated Press awards and those mean a great deal, too. The reason this is such an amazing thing, though, is that this win was for my fiction. I wrote something from my mind and people liked it!

There is, to me, something so much more vulnerable about putting stories out there in the world, rather than articles or book cover copy or even blog posts. Those are all, to a large extent, rational things. They describe things many people encounter, or actual books that exist, or events that have really happened. Stories...they're possibilities. The worlds they describe aren't real, not even if I set them in the here and now. I hope they're believable enough that people feel at home there--but my muse and my imagination and my hands have collaborated to create something out of whole cloth. It's SO MUCH HARDER than writing non-fiction! And thereby, so much sweeter when it works. There's more at stake, somehow.

A few months ago, I heard that my old writers' group was sponsoring a very awesome writing contest. I felt no qualms about entering because I haven't been a member for years and the judging was all blind. In fact, many or most of the judges were people with no connection to the group at all. If my work got any recognition, I would know it deserved it.

And I won. No one was more surprised than I.

So last night was the big award ceremony. Nearly 200 people showed up, if Debbie's estimation was accurate. I was NOT one of those people, sad to say.

Here's the thing, here's my point. The coolest part of the night, to me (from my great distance), wasn't the check. It wasn't the number of people who listened to Debbie read my excerpt and told her after that they didn't want her to stop reading. It wasn't even the sparkling happiness of the group's founder at the success of what they'd accomplished (though I loved hearing that).

Nope. It was the woman who went up to Debbie and said in great earnestness, "That story you read? That could have been me," and then went on to explain how she'd given up painting many years ago because she didn't think she was good enough. Now, because of my story, she was inspired and is going to pick up her brushes again. She was going to try to create again.

BECAUSE OF MY STORY!

That was the very. best. thing.

Music of Memory

They say scent is the most evocative sense, bringing back emotions and memories more strongly and more immediately than any other. I don't dispute that (there's a whole "autumn smells" post on the back burner), but I think music can give smell a run for its money.

There are certain songs that, without fail, immediately drag me back into proximity of certain people. They could be -- and often are -- decades removed, but one bar of the song and I'm right back at that age. It's almost always a positive thing, though falling back into high school can be...complicated.

The most expansive example of this effect happens with any song on the entire Slippery When Wet album. A few years after it came out, I'd moved to Oshkosh and Mike Moxon drove me to school and around town a lot. He KNEW I hated that album (and I really, really did). But he also discovered, much to his amusement, that once I know a song, I can't NOT sing along. I mean, I may not even realize I'm singing. So he started playing it every time I got in his big orange-and-white Ford pickup...which was a lot. It's thanks to him I still remember the lyrics and he's the only reason I can think of Bon Jovi with any fondness.

Oshkosh is also the reason anything by George Michael reminds me of Chris Mueller. He and I had been to some random event at a Lutheran church and he was driving me home. This ride home was some kind of set up by our mothers, who (as far as I can figure out), both apparently thought it would be cute if we dated. He and I were under no such illusions...but neither of us was sure the other knew that. It was a very tense, very quiet ride home, with no sound but the radio. And then one song ended and the DJ said, "Next up, George Michael with 'I Want Your Sex.'" There was a moment of frozen panic during which time seemed to stop and my cheeks felt like they were reaching bonfire levels of blushing --and then Chris lunged for the radio to shut it off. He looked sideways at me, I looked at him...and we both burst out laughing. Tenseness over, friendship restored, and I got out of his car at my house without any awkwardness. We never did try dating, though.

Once upon a time, a boy made me two mix tapes, one of which had nothing but love songs on it. He claimed he chose them because he "thought they were songs you might like." One of the featured songs was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." When that song comes on (and I know it by heart, every lyric, every note, every pause), I don't think of Kevin Costner; I think of Jason. There are songs on there that I forget existed until they come over random store speakers or on the radio as I drive cross country and BAM! There I am, 15 and wistful and touched and deeply annoyed, all at the same time.

Collective Soul's "Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid" is freshman year of college in an album to me. I'd never heard of them, but Carl loaned me his copy, telling me I had to hear it. I didn't give it back for months.

Sophomore year was the year of Swedish electropop. Anything from Ace of Base takes me back to my dorm room, singing into hairbrushes with Janet and Jen. "I'm a turtle lying in a coffin, waiting for you!" and other classics of misheard lyrics that were way better than the original version, while we jumped around on the beds, dancing and laughing--this pastime was one of the best things about rooming together.

It's not limited to popular music, either. You pop in the Chess soundtrack, and I can HEAR Shonda singing it. She was obsessed and it didn't take her long to drag me into it. 

College is meant to expand your horizons--some of which you might have preferred to avoid. Example: Jen and country music. I hate it. She loved it. She was the only one with a car. So we all listened to it. Which is why, last year, driving into New Orleans after a long sleepless night, when Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" came on the radio, I surprised everyone in the car, including myself, by suddenly, rousingly, singing along. (See "Bon Jovi," "earworm," example above). 

Songs that make me smile by association still happen today. When "Bulletproof" by La Roux comes on, I automatically grin because BabyJosh's face pops up. But somehow, the links don't happen as often, or perhaps as deeply.

Maybe music connects most strongly when you're still trying to define the world as you fit into it, and that happens most as an adolescent or young adult? I don't know. Maybe I just did more stuff back then!

I wonder if there are songs that remind people of me?

"I want to be left alone," Garbo said

I recently heard an interview on NPR with an author who wrote a novel about a famous reclusive writer.

I found myself wondering if it's even possible to be a famous reclusive writer anymore? With book tours and required promotions like blogs and social media and all the things that are pushed on authors--heck, even NPR interviews--how can it be? A famous writer OR a reclusive writer, sure. But both? I can't see it happening. I can't see people leaving you alone to be so--people who like your work and want to tell you, much less your own agent or publisher.

Imagine Salinger on Twitter. Or Harper Lee embarking on a multi-city signing, having to smile at all the Boo Radley cosplayers in front of her table. Agents considering Proust's work purring derisively, "But Mr. Proust, what's your platform?" Could Emily Dickinson have written what she did if she were constantly being prodded to self-promote her poetry?  (Though, to be fair, poetry is probably in a different category and she wasn't popular in her lifetime).

Is it still possible? I don't know.

I kind of hope so, though. It's the kind of writer I'd like to be. Like Anne McCaffery on her Irish hidey-hole estate...only in my case, somewhere on the coast of New England, perhaps. (Not that I'd turn my nose up at Ireland or Scotland, but if I'm going to make the kind of money famous reclusive writers make in order to maintain their reclusivity, I'm getting ocean-front).

Besides, so much of my work depends on being able to interact with trees and listening to wind and water or staring into the face of the blue, blue sky or sussing out the tiny wildflowers that hide under bracken in the woods.  It involves knowing the insides of people's minds, not the brief, brisk, interactions that blur together.

I do want to write work that lasts, work that speaks to people and creates new, wandering pathways through their synapses. I want to craft things that bring tears to my readers' eyes or elicit unexpected belly laughs. And, yes, it would be wonderful to be able to do all of that and get paid for it well enough that I wouldn't HAVE to do anything else--but I'm not sure being famous is worth it.

Then again, I'm not sure being a recluse is, either.

Foster Fail

Yep.

I'm keeping her.

Her new name is Pavlova, after both the dancer and the dessert, but pronounced as the dessert is. Pav-LO-va.

She is rather like a meringue with toppings, yes?

Now that we've got that settled, perhaps I can get back to the rest of my life and start musing about in blog posts again.

Then kitten happened...

Sorry, sorry. For the three of you who come here, I've got a bunch of partial posts on the back burner. But I've gotten distracted by things like job interviews, life, shelter animals, and a fluffy kitten.

This fluffy kitten.

Background: for those of you who don't know, I've been volunteering at our local Humane Society since...oh, gosh, since March. Wow. I started as a dog walker, cat player-wither, and then a couple of months ago, I started writing profiles.

Since then I have met and said goodbye to several dogs I would rather have taken home with me, said a far-too-permanent goodbye to two dogs I loved deeply and instantaneously who each died of complications of illnesses (one of them this last week; I was there when he arrived at the shelter and I was with him in his final moments), given chin scratches to scores of cats and kittens (knowing it was too soon after Hamlet's loss to bring another home), and become a pet and/or volunteering pusher. "Come on; come with me just one time. No pressure!" 

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the above kitten was caught in a humane trap that had been set for another litter. They were in there, black and striped, and then there was this fuzzy, long-haired ragdoll kitten no one was expecting.

The shelter staff named her Buttercup, but Shrinking Violet might have been a better name. She was half feral, hissing and trying desperately to hide every time a hand came near her. She didn't try to bite or scratch, not once, but the power of that hiss kept most people away.

I'd picked her up a few times, and she always dissolved into purring. We think that's the ragdoll breeding. But you had to be willing to bypass the hissing and fear first.

On Friday night, I caved to the pressure of the great shelter folks (who are themselves pushers of the highest order, but in the nicest way), of her cuteness, and of my desire to see if I could get her to her best cat self. I brought her home to socialize in a non-threatening environment.

She spent most of Friday night hiding in the litter box. It has nice, tall sides and felt safe to her. She came out to eat food and to get forcibly cuddled (which she loved and hated, all at the same time), and then would slink back in to her safe place the instant something scary would happen--like, say, I moved one of my feet.

By today, Sunday, she's a different kitten. Oh, she still hisses and backs away EVERY TIME I come into her room. But it only takes me getting on my hands and knees now, and she runs TO me, rather than away. She purrs a real purr all the time, she twines about me, she's learned to play with toys, she uses the whole room to explore, rather than just sleeping curled up in the corner of the litter box, and she'll crawl up on my lap on her own. All this in just two days.

I still think the rest of the house is too much for her right now. She's working on owning her controlled environment. But if things keep going the way they have been, she's going to make someone a wonderful companion in the not-too-distant future.

I have been warned about foster-fails. You know, where you take someone home to "foster," and suddenly, you just have a new pet who never leaves, because you can't bear to give them back? So far, I've been holding out strong. Thinking of new names doesn't count; I'm a writer and namer, it's just what I do. Calling her baby doesn't count; that's just how you refer to wee animals. Being proud of her when she does things like a normal kitten instead of a feral baby doesn't count; that's pride in my work and hope for her future.

Right?

I'm not doomed yet. YET. Give me another week or two, though, and it might be too late.

Which is too bad, because now I've got a perfect room for fostering other kitters. Adopt the one or help the many?

In short, *flail*

Here. Have a video. Turn your head to the left and enjoy.

The Missing

There are people who come briefly or unexpectedly into my life, and there's an instant...something. A click, or a premonition, or just a recognition of vibrancy, perhaps. And I'm quickly convinced that I'll always know them, that they're worth knowing more, that they'll make my world a better place by being part of it.

And then...nothing. They're gone. We had one meeting or three or even a few months of friendship, but now I can't remember their name...or at least not enough of it to find them on the internet, now that that has become a thing.

Facebook, for all its problems, has helped some of that simply by placing connections between the people whose names I CAN remember and the people they remember, until I can track back to the person I'm looking for.

That's how I found the girl who was one of my two best friends in kindergarten (and I found Tytus, too), and who starred with me in a personalised Sesame Street book that is one of the few legacies I have from my dad. Betsy and Scott from 1st through 3rd grades are on there. And let's not forget the masses of awesome people from Oshkosh that have moved back onto my radar: Amie, Karin, Mike, Ben, Beth, etc., etc.--even Scott and Tim, the two boys that I adopted as my brothers, for reasons I can't quite remember (I still have the yellow bunny pillow Scott got me for Christmas one year). They're all within arm's reach again, even if the connection we once had has since been lost. It's good to know that they DO continue to exist and to have at least a small picture of what their lives are like.

But there are still people missing, people who aren't as easy to find. There are people whose names I didn't write down or can't pull out of the memory files or never knew in the first place.

There was a girl at a group that took place in a hospital meeting room in Oshkosh. I have no idea what I was there for, what the group was, or anything else that might give me a frame of reference. What I do remember is thinking, "Okay, you have something in common with these people, so say something to someone." I picked a girl who looked just about as shy as I was (e.g. veryveryvery), and decided for some reason to pass her a note. I think I might have told her I liked her hair or that she had a cool ring or asked her a question. I don't even know. What I do remember is that her face lit up, and when it came to the mingling portion of the night, we had a fun conversation and an effortless connection--and then I never went back. And I always regretted that--the friendship that might have been.

There was Saskia at choir camp. She had a killer voice, which, at choir camp, automatically makes you one of the cool kids. But Saskia would have been cool anywhere. She was exotic and vibrant and bold and awesome. I'm not sure she and I would ever have been extremely close friends, but I always suspected she'd end up doing amazing things, and I'd love to know if my instinct was right.

Theatre camp was the week after choir camp, so I stayed the weekend, while most of the other campers went home. And in those two days, I found one of the soul-friends of my life. I think her name was Rebecca. We had so many things in common, and we talked about everything... which is to say, mostly books we both loved and what that said about personality and philosophy and all the things that stem from that when you realize you've found someone whose brain works like yours in a world in which you didn't know that was possible (this is also how Tailyn and I ended up as friends years later). But on Sunday, my world back home imploded. Everything had changed abruptly and catastrophically, and in the flurry of trying to get back there, Rebecca and I never remembered to exchange information. And there that friendship went, a casualty of greater tragedies.

Then there was Catherine. I never actually knew her last name, though we were friends for years. She and I were penpals--actual pen-and-ink paper letter writers. I have been digging around in my memory to try to figure out how that ever started and I can't remember. Did we meet on the internet? Was there some sort of pen-pal advertising network? I honestly don't know. I was in my 20s when we started writing to each other, so it was a somewhat atypical pen-pal relationship. We might go for months without writing each other, and then suddenly get the impulse--and discover that the other person was a week away from moving to a new address. This happened two or three times for each of us. The last I heard from her, she was in Texas, working at a children's bookstore, and having an amazing time. Sadly, that's the last letter I got. That little psychic bell of impending move warning never went off again, at least not in time to track each other down. And we'd decided not to reveal last names, at least in part to revel in our shared first name, so I've no way of knowing where she is now.

I mourn the possibilities that these and other encounters represent. Sometimes, I feel like my life is lessened by their loss, the "what could have been."

But maybe not. Maybe they're out there, occasionally wondering what happened to me, grateful they encountered me right when I was needed, reminding them that connection is always possible. Maybe it was just as useful to them that there was someone else who saw life in similar colors.

Brevity, it turns out, does not make for smaller friendships, only shorter ones. There's a comfort in that.

Responsibility of Creation

Just before I started this blog thing up again, I read through what I've already posted. One thing punched me in the face: I talk about writing a LOT.

I promised myself that, this time around, I'd try not to do that. But you know what? Forget it. That's dumb. Writing is what I DO. So...

I don't know how many of you are writers, whether you dabble or make a living at it or anywhere on the spectrum. But I have a ponder to pose: do you ever find yourself working on something that, when you step back from it, you know is good, if only you can keep it going until it emerges completely. Like, seriously, deeply good?

I have a couple of things like that right now ("Venezia" and "Susurrus," if you're curious). I've had a few throughout my life.

I don't think I've ever finished a single one of them. I've never felt ready, if that makes sense. I remember being very aware as a teenager that, if I wrote that particular piece now, I'd ruin it, and I didn't want to. But I'm not sure I ever got back to those pieces, either, so now it feels like a waste not to try something.

Part of my hangup is that. I don't want to mess it up. But who else am I going to give it to? Because I often do want to give it away to a better writer. "Here, work your magic on this," I'd say. Even though their magic didn't come up with it in the first place and that would be doing it just as great a disservice.

Part of it is the sheer weight of responsibility. I can see what it should be. I know where I need to go with it, and how utterly good it can be. But I HAVE TO DO IT. And if I can't get the discipline to do it right, I fail both of us completely. PRESSURE.

Part of it is a very weird fear of success that is just too complicated to get into here. Suffice to say that success has...implications.

It's like I've got an amazing muse who just flits off halfway through, distracted by squirrels and rainbows and  necromancy (which is not what I meant to type, but I'm leaving it, because it's valid), breezing over her shoulder, "You've got this, right?" on her way.

No. But I'll try.

Any other writers have any idea what I'm talking about? Or non-writers, for that matter--maybe this is a universal thing.

Always a bridesmaid...

Superstitions -- or traditions that carry the weight of superstition -- are funny things. (You might think that I'm required to think that because I'm a folklorist, but the truth is, it's the other way around).

The one that's currently on my mind is the saying, "Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride." (This gets confused in my head with "Three times a lady," but I digress). Somewhere along the line, this devolved into "Always a bridesmaid..." often followed by a rueful smile and shake of the head.

The first place I remember this saying was in an L. M. Montgomery book, which I've recently reread (hence the current musing). Anne is talking to her friend Diana right before Diana descends the stairs to marry. Diana is lamenting that she won't be able to be Anne's bridesmaid (apparently "matron of honor" or brides-matron wasn't a thing, which would leave me bereft of any wedding party of my own, were it still true). Anne says, "I'm to be Phil's bridesmaid next June, when she marries Mr. Blake, and then I must stop, for you know the saying, 'three times a bridesmaid, never a bride.'"

I spent years going to weddings, but not being in them. Lots and LOTS of weddings. Some years it seemed like there was a wedding every weekend as soon as it stopped snowing. My friend John was in...was it 19 or 22?.. weddings in a single year (he sings beautifully, he's a connecty extrovert, and he's willing to MC things when necessary, so he's a popular guy). Hmmm...why is there no "three times a groomsman" saying?

Meanwhile, I had yet to be in any--not that it helped my own chances of being the star of the show.

Then my friend Debbie got remarried and--to my shock and joy --asked me to be the maid of honor. I happily accepted.

My best-friend-since-high-school Amy got married next. She followed through with the plan we made as teenagers, and I was, once again, the maid of honor.

Last summer, my soul sister Jody whirlwind romanced to the altar, and I was lacing up my maid of honor shoes once more.

Here I am, not just three times a bridesmaid, but the ultimate, concentrated bridesmaid! Surely that heightens the likelihood that I'll never be married myself. My life seems to bear this out.

I could be broken up about this. Worried that I'm going to die alone. Found partially eaten by cats that, at this point, aren't even mine.

Here's the thing: even were I a superstitious person, I wouldn't trade a single one of those turns as maid of honor even if it guaranteed I'd get married. They're representations of friendships deeper than I can describe in words; it's dear to me that I am thought enough of by these incredible women to be given that honor.

And not just because I'm the only single one left. :)

Next up: "A rolling stone gathers no moss." How sad would that be? Moss is lovely--stop rolling at once!

Oddities of creativity

Sometimes I write poetry.

Wait, no, that's not quite true.

I used to write poetry. You know, angsty stuff in high school, as one does. It wasn't good, but it was heartfelt. Teenage girls, man.

I love poetry. I realize I am a minority in this. I love it, I get it...but I don't write it. Not in a long time. I wrote a poem in grad school for a project, but I didn't really like it. I liked what I was trying to say, but not how I said it. It felt like high school stuff again.

Then I entered a writing contest and, much to my surprise, I wrote not two stories, but a story and a poem. And I liked it. It gave me the frisson I get when I read Marianne Moore or Pablo Neruda or Jeanne Murray Walker or Tennyson. I mean, it was nowhere near as good as any single one of those people, but I'd written it, so the frisson was heightened. The judges liked it, too, which was reassuring. It made it to the very last round of judging, though it didn't win. (My story did; yay!)

Suddenly, I'm writing poetry again. Sort of. Bits and pieces here and there that aren't complete, but have promise.  That sound almost like what I'm trying to convey.

Here's something that just popped up the other day. I thought it was the beginning of something, but now I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the middle to end. If it were the beginning, it would be a depressing poem, but it's supposed to end up something of a transportive love poem, full of joy and amazement. I think. 

The realization that I love you is a
spider on the wall, terror
    and adrenaline
stopping my heart, then starting again in
    the wrong beat
too fast
full of tears.

I am interested in what you think about this. I'm not sure where it'll go, so suggestions or thoughts would be useful.

But to take a sharp left (you never saw this coming!), there are also interesting neurological implications here! Oh, yes, yummy, yummy neurology. There might not have been, were it not for my friend Debbie. She used to play the piano in her youth, but left it behind for many years. One day she thought it might be fun to start playing the piano again. She started again as a beginner, with little expectation. Suddenly she realized something interesting: she was better than she ever had been.

Parallel! I find this fascinating.

So what's something you used to love to do, but left behind? It's possible you might surprise yourself if you pick it up again.

Horribly Nice

It's been years since I've been here, and I doubt anyone is still reading this. Given my predilection for privacy, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I have no desire to ever be a blog that goes viral. For one thing, I could do without half the internet hating me, and another quarter loving me because they've completely misunderstood what I'm saying. I like my cozy little corner of internet obscurity.

That said, I'm going to try writing on here again. Going back and rereading this blog, as I have recently done, is...enjoyable. (Though, as I was telling my sister last night, I come off primarily as a whiffly, ditzy, nature bunny who's FAR too into writing. Mostly that's fair).

So. Back into the fray I go. We'll see if it sticks. Follow along, children.

Let's talk about niceness. I have a love/hate relationship with that word, stemming largely, but not solely, from an experience in 10th grade when I was 14. For a class assignment (and I cannot for the life of me remember what class), we were all given small slips of paper with our classmates's names on them. On these slips we were to write one adjective ("positive" was implied) describing that person. In theory, this is a good experiment, one that forces you to think about the people around you, to view them in a positive light if only for a second, and one guaranteed to offer each child an ego boost. Sort of a low-tech Johari window. The teacher meant the entire thing kindly (I'm quite sure of that, because it was my mother), and was certainly trying to bring people together.

Unfortunately, no one reckons on me. Not even myself. If there is a way to feel worse about myself, chances are good I'll find it. In this instance, I think it stemmed largely from my deep desire to be known truly. Maybe. I had been going to school with the people in this class for four years--the longest I'd EVER been at a school. These were my friends, people with whom I had shared actual life experiences, who knew me as well as anyone could at that point. Bearing that in mind, I spent time on each slip. I used different adjectives, I delved into shared memories for unique terms, I tried to think of what each person wanted or needed to hear about themselves. We passed them in, they were sorted out, and we each got our pile. I'd always wanted to read people's thoughts and see what they really thought about me, and now, here at last was a completely anonymous, transparent way of finding out just a little bit of that truth.

I had 18 slips of paper that read, "Nice," and one that said, "smart?"*

Nice? NICE? You've known me for four years and all you can say about me is "Nice"?! That's a cipher word, something you say about someone you don't know well, and really don't want to be bothered with. "She seems nice." "He's a nice guy." "I don't know; it was nice." It's a default word, nondescript, non-threatening, non....anything! I hadn't yet come across the original meaning of the word (which I think is telling: 1250–1300; Middle English: foolish, stupid < Old French: silly, simple < Latin nescius ignorant, incapable, equivalent to ne- negative prefix + sci- (stem of scīre to know; see science) + -us adj. suffix ), but I instinctively felt it.

Perhaps I would have felt differently if fewer people had chosen that word. Perhaps if a few had picked "good writer," "smart," "thoughtful," "funny," "good actress," or other things I knew I was as WELL as nice, I would have felt uplifted. It was the fact that kid after kid after kid chose "nice" that ended up being very not nice. It made me feel as if I made no impression at all. I almost would have preferred to be called mean or intimidating or sly.

But no. Not even "sweet." Also no physical characteristics, though several other girls got "pretty," "great eyes," "good hair," things like that. Some of them did put smiley faces next to the word. Some said, "She's nice," or "You're nice." I appreciated the smileys, somehow. It made it feel a little more personal, in the midst of a lot of impersonalness.

And my poor mother was left trying to comfort a daughter who was crying because people thought she was nice and couldn't explain why that was a bad thing. I did try, but I suspect coherence was not my strong suit that night. I was angry and hurt and those generally don't do good things for my ability to explain. She was probably proud of me and of the way she raised me, having no idea what a storm it would brew. How does a 14-year-old explain that the problem is that she doesn't want to be "nice," she wants to be SPECIAL?

This was not an isolated incident, though probably the most pointed. "Nice" has followed me throughout my life. I come across as nice, bland, a perfectly pleasant person, but nothing more. Sometimes this has benefits: I've never once gotten stopped in airport security, because I appear somewhat gormless when I smile. Something about the proportions of my face (and probably the fat surrounding it), make me seem completely innocuous. Often people who have a tendency to think the worst of people get along with me, because I'm (say it with me) nice. I am, as one of my college friends described me (much to my horror), "water, not orange juice." I go with everything, apparently, but I don't stand out (no, really, that was his explanation).

It isn't that I think being nice is a bad thing. Of course not. It's just that it comes nowhere close to describing and encapsulating who I am (for one thing, I don't actually think I AM very nice!). I find people interesting, I can generally find something good to say about anyone, but if I tell you good things about yourself, it isn't being nice. It's being honest. But I think plenty of judgmental things, I can be mean, I'm often mischievous, I'm sarcastic, I have a twisted mind--I have spice, dang it! There's a kick to me!

On the other hand, if "nice" really is what you think of me, would you mind at least using a thesaurus?

*Actual numbers may be slightly skewed, but seriously, not by very much.